Page 18 of The Sleepwalker

It wasn’t until Hugo met Olga nine months ago that he began to understand just how much he had missed his mother. He found he could talk to her about Claire, and he was taken aback by how emotional it made him, realising for the first time that the loss of her had shaped his entire life.

It had been Olga’s idea for them to travel to Canada together over the summer, to track down Claire.

‘But you have to be prepared for the possibility that she might still be stuck in the same place she was when she left, and everything that goes along with that,’ Olga had warned him as she lit a cigarette.

‘I’m not expecting some happy-ever-after reunion. I just want to see her, to say hello and look her in the eye .?.?. You know, it makes me feel physically sick when I think about how I’ve almost completely forgotten her.’

Four months ago, he and Olga opened a joint account to save up for their trip. Olga has paid in three times as much as him so far, but he plans to work over the Christmas break, maybe even ask his dad for a loan.

Olga speaks French and has a driving licence, and she has promised to help him in his search.

Hugo likes to imagine his mother living alone in her parents’ dilapidated old house in Le Grand-Village, with nothing but her dog, plants and hens for company. She has been clean for several years, drives a rusty Ford pickup and works part-time with pre-school children in Cap-Rouge.

In this fantasy, he stays with Claire once Olga goes home, spends the summer with her, and before he too flies back to Sweden, he takes his mother out to a nice restaurant with white tablecloths and colourful lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

They get dressed up and spend hours eating. Claire says, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be your mother until now,’ and he gives her his silver dinar.

Hugo has no idea where the coin came from. All he knows is that it was in his hand when he woke in the forest after sleepwalking as a child. Since that day, he has worn it as a kind of amulet on a thin chain, telling himself that it protects him.

The coin is incredibly thin, made from dented silver, and it features an image of a dog or a wolf surrounded by what looks like Arabic text.

When he told Olga about his fantasy, she pinched his cheek as though he were a child and said that he was a silly little cutie pie.

Hugo gets to his feet and runs a hand through his hair. His stomach is aching, and he hopes it might be time for breakfast soon.

Someone walks by in the corridor outside, the wheels of a trolley squeaking.

Through the thick walls, he hears one of the other men shouting.

He realises he must have tried to get out of the cell in his sleep when he sees the blood on the door, on the bars over the hatch and on the little sign telling him what to do in case of fire.

6

Agneta wakes at six thirty to the sound of Bernard’s electric razor through the closed bathroom door.

It takes her a few seconds to remember where she is.

While the police search their home, she and Bernard have decided to make the best of a bad situation by checking in to the Grand Hôtel in central Stockholm.

Her plan was to enjoy a lie-in while he set an alarm and drove back to the house to welcome the police and prove himself cooperative.

Agneta dozes off again, noticing little more than a faint waft of toothpaste as he kisses her on the forehead and leaves the room.

At eight o’clock, she gets up to open the door for her breakfast trolley, pours herself a coffee and eats a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in bed.

The sky grows bright above the green copper roof of the palace on the other side of the water.

Agneta doesn’t have to be at the newsroom by Telefonplan for another two hours, and she drinks a little more coffee and thinks back to dinner last night.

She had changed into a black crochet skirt woven with shimmering gold thread, a yellow silk blouse that hugged her chest and a pair of gold sandals with a stiletto heel.

‘Spare me, Aphrodite,’ Bernard said as he held the heavy door for her.

She walked down the quiet hotel corridor ahead of him, swaying her hips from side to side.

‘I’m on my knees,’ he called after her, tucking the key card into his breast pocket.

She had laughed and continued over to the lifts, pressed the button and heard the whirr of machinery on the other side of the brass doors.